Where this was said
Maltese Journalism & the Accountability Deficit
At 59:00 · chapter starts 52:30
Jon Mallia introduces a theme that has been lurking beneath the surface: without strong independent journalism, all the reforms discussed are harder to achieve. [1] — Jon Mallia "Maltese news organisations lack the funding, training and editorial independence to conduct serious investigative journalism. Without that,…" 55:30 He contrasts Maltese news organisations — small, resource-constrained, commercially vulnerable — with the English-language press, where teams of journalists spend weeks on a single story with the institutional backing to pursue powerful targets. In Malta, he argues, a journalist who wants to do serious investigative work faces a hostile combination of small market size, commercial pressure, and limited editorial training. The result is a media landscape that covers politics at surface level but rarely subjects power to the sustained scrutiny that makes democratic accountability real. Formosa and Grech agree that this is not just a media-industry problem but a democratic one: voters cannot make informed choices about complex policy issues without quality journalism to interpret them.
The panel agreed that Malta must move away from a quantity-based economic model — more tourists, more construction, more cars — toward a quality-focused model.
Maltese news organisations lack the funding, training and editorial independence to conduct serious investigative journalism. Without that, politicians operate with impunity and citizens can't make informed choices.
Malta's journalism sector lacks the resources, training and institutional support needed for deep investigative reporting, leaving citizens without adequate political accountability.
David Grech ran a session with children aged 11-14 asking them about political leadership choices, finding the results illuminating about how political loyalty is formed early.
